The present invention relates to systems for monitoring the location of personnel and property. More specifically, the invention is a system and method for locating an individual who has wandered away from their home and who is unable to return without assistance from others, such as a person afflicted with Alzheimer's disease.
Millions of older Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease and studies indicate that this number may increase significantly in the next century. Most of the people with Alzheimer's and related disorders are cared for in the home where constant monitoring and care often pose a heavy burden on the caregiver. Frequently, the caregiver must leave the afflicted individual at home alone at high risk for wandering away from home or for accident. For many caregivers there is little option as they must leave the afflicted individual at home while they work or shop. Similarly, afflicted persons living in nursing homes must bear the heavy cost of attendants to monitor their movement. The present invention provides an option for the caregiver who must leave the afflicted individual at home and a means to reduce nursing home costs by providing a low cost system for monitoring the movements of afflicted individuals and, if the need arises, for locating an individual who has wandered away from their residence.
The physical and mental abilities of both the afflicted individual and caregiver are considerations in the design and operation of the present invention. For example, a transmitter that may be carried by the afflicted individual should be lightweight, unobtrusive and carry such designs and/or colors that may be acceptable to the afflicted individual so that they would be less likely to want to remove it. The transmitter should include features that prevent the inadvertent or unknowing removal of the device from the individual. A monitoring and tracking unit for home use should include features that enable operation by an unskilled person, such as a family member or neighbor.
Personnel location monitoring systems may include a radio frequency transmitter carried by the individual whose location is being monitored and a receiver unit at a monitoring location for providing an alarm when the individual wanders beyond the reception range of the monitoring unit. Such systems are the most basic when designed for home use. Typically, because of manufacturing cost and complicated operating procedures they do not include provisions for determining direction to the individual whose location is to be monitored, do not include provisions for preventing removal of the radio frequency transmitter from the individual and do not provide features for uniquely identifying the signal to enable multi-person monitoring capabilities. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,291 to Hawthorne and U.S. Pat. No. 4,593,273 to Narcisse.
Systems designed for use by firemen, policemen and hospital/nursing home staffs may include a tracking capability. Such systems are generally complicated to use and include a separate tracking device. The separate tracking device may be used efficiently by a trained professional, but a distraught family member may find such devices unduly complicated in an emergency. Further, such devices may have fragile antenna elements inappropriate for home use. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,468,656 to Clifford et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,814,751 to Hawkins, et al.
The radio frequency transmitting device carried by the individual whose location is to be monitored may be affixed to the individual so that it cannot be removed by the individual. Such devices may include features for resisting tampering or features that indicate when tampering has occurred. Such devices are well known in electronic monitoring systems for prisoners at home. These devices, however, are typically bulky and include features to thwart the extreme measures that a home prisoner might take. Accordingly, such devices are expensive to build and inappropriate for use by an elderly person afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,777,477 to Watson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,571 to Pauley, et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,284 to Leveille, et al.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel personnel location monitoring system that is easy to use in the home and provides features commensurate with the physical and mental state of individuals having Alzheimer's and related diseases.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel personnel location monitoring system that includes a device carried by the individual whose location is to be monitored that has a pressure sensitive latch for preventing removal of the device and for indicating when tampering has occurred.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a novel personnel location monitoring system with a single unit that provides both monitoring and tracking capability and is suitable for use in the home.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a novel personnel location monitoring system having a portable direction finding antenna connected to a monitoring unit, the antenna having three parallel elements carried on a rigid support that prevents damage to the antenna elements.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a method of monitoring and tracking an individual carrying a transmitter that includes the capability to monitor and track the individual with a single portable unit with selectable directional and omnidirectional antennae.
These and many other objects and advantages will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims, the appended drawings and the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.